


There We Go Again

by LightMayo



Category: Political RPF - US 21st c., The Office (US)
Genre: Angst, Canon Divergent, Divorce, F/M, Getting Back Together, Politics, Post-Canon, US Senate
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-26
Updated: 2021-03-07
Packaged: 2021-03-18 15:49:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 19,925
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28994757
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LightMayo/pseuds/LightMayo
Summary: Jim and Pam had been divorced for exactly seven years when Pat Toomey announced his retirement. That didn’t prevent them both from getting the exact same idea.This is going to include descriptions of political ideologies you do not agree with. I’m going to try to keep this as much about the characters as possible, but if you don’t want to read... don’t.
Relationships: Pam Beesly/Jim Halpert
Comments: 2
Kudos: 16





	1. Chapter 1

“Well, if Pam says she won’t go, then we’re gonna need a lot more than counseling.”

 _That was it_ , Jim would think years later, looking back. That was when he knew it would all fall apart. Sure, their marriage lasted another seven months or so. But it wouldn’t be the same. Jim had said the quiet part out loud: he wasn’t giving up the job in Philly, no matter the cost. There was no going back from that. Still, she played the same game. She wasn’t leaving Scranton. Neither of them were willing to give in, and what they were doing wasn’t working, and that left only one place to go. And sitting down, talking to Toby—Jim would remember that as the beginning of the end.

That’s what Jim told himself, anyway, but it didn’t mean that it didn’t sting when the seven year anniversary of the day that was never supposed to happen approached. October 5th, 2020. Three years longer than their marriage lasted.

He had known it was coming up that Sunday, the 4th, when he saw Pam at the McDonalds in Allentown to drop off the kids. They spent the weeks with her in Scranton, but many weekends with him in Philly. And on Friday and Sunday evenings he would meet up with Pam at the McDonalds in Allentown, always the same one, right off the highway. He didn’t say anything to Pam on that particular day, but he knew she knew what the next day meant. They rarely said much to each other anymore anyway.

The next day was hard. Jim’s buddies from work talked about going out to a bar to cheer him up, but he just wanted to go home. Watch Monday Night Football. Cry. When he saw that Pat Toomey was retiring, he didn’t think much, other than, sarcastically, _I can’t_ wait _to see who they get to replace him_.

Jim had agreed to the reunion in July 2020, a full year before it actually happened. He hadn’t wanted to do it at first. He told the guy running it, Jack Redmond was his name, that he thought it would be better if no one ever knew what happened with him and Pam. The whole crew managed to wrap it up all nice; there was no point in ruining that. And maybe some part of him wanted to compartmentalize that time of his life, the time he spent with her.

Still, Dwight ended up calling him, he wanted Jim to come, and Michael was coming in from Colorado and Andy from Ithaca and Darryl offered to drive up with him. So Jim agreed to go.

He didn’t know he would have an announcement to make. Didn’t know until about a month before. That May was when Representative Chrissy Houlahan announced her run for Senate. Considering the reactions from the Democratic establishment, she might as well have announced that she was going to be the nominee. “Yeah, man, primaries are basically a scam,” Darryl agreed when Jim brought the subject up one day at work. “A racist one, too.”

“I was hoping they would at least go for John Fetterman,” Jim said. “How do they not see that she’s going to lose? It’s this electability bullshit.”

Darryl shook his head but said nothing.

“I mean you look at these rural voters, they really aren’t well off economically. You know? If anyone could use a $15 minimum wage, 15 or 20, if anyone could use free public college, if anyone could use single payer health care. But you can’t blame these voters for not seeing that when all you’ll put out is the same Wall Street guys you accuse the Republicans of being! And then they’ll wonder why black voters won’t turn out when not only do you not support any of that stuff, but you’re too weak to stand up against the fundamentally racist nature of our police forces. And you look at what happened in Georgia, where neither Ossoff or Warnock are super moderate, but they won. These are popular, winning policies!”

“I don’t know, man,” Darryl said. “You seem to know what you’re talking about. Why don’t you run for Senate?” he added as he walked back to his desk. Jim kept his mouth shut and shrugged his shoulders before shaking his head.

It wasn’t until a week later, when Houlahan said something particularly facepalm-worthy about how single-payer was socialist that Jim actually seriously considered it. When Jim asked how he could get publicity, it was Darryl who proposed doing it at the reunion.

So, there they were. Jim didn’t want to talk first, and he had gotten Jack to concede that much, so he sat and listened to stories about Michael in Colorado and Andy at Cornell and Shrute Farms. Still, he wondered if it was obviously to everyone in the audience and watching live at home that something was up with him and Pam. Came in separately, sat down on opposite sides of the stage, didn’t make any eye contact at all.

They would find out soon enough, Jim knew, as he heard Jack ask him what had happened to him since the show ended. 

“Well, on the bright side, I’m really enjoying working with Athlead, and it’s going really well. With all due respect to Dunder Mifflin,” he said before chuckling, “I never imagined I could care so much about a job.” He paused before continuing. “Unfortunately, it, uh....” He paused again, and any happiness drained out of his face. “It cost me my marriage. Pam and I have been divorced for a little over seven years.” That got the audience to make noise. “We wanted different things, and those things required us to part ways.”

“Once you start thinking that maybe things would be better if you weren’t married,” Pam explained, piping up for the first time that night, “it’s really hard to stop.”

“So, Pam,” Jack piped in. “Why don’t you take this opportunity to tell us what you’ve been up to.”

“Well,” Pam started, “I’ve been taking care of the kids. I have them almost every week and about a third of weekends, the rest of the time they get driven down to be with Jim in Philly. As for work, I stayed with Dunder Mifflin until about two years ago, when I took a full time job with the Northern Pennsylvania Arts Society. It’s a lot of administrative work but still a lot of fun.”

“Also,” Pam continued, “I haven’t actually announced this yet, but I have decided to run for the United States Senate to replace Pat Toomey.”

That got Jim’s attention. He couldn’t conceal the look of surprise across his face. “No kidding,” he said, interrupting Pam. He chuckled. “So am I.”

Pam had worked her announcement down to the last word. It was just one sentence. “I have decided to run for the United States Senate to replace Pat Toomey because Pennsylvania deserves an authentic conservative who puts the American worker first.” A long sentence, but one sentence nevertheless. Of course Jim had to come around and interrupt it.

The idea had been in her mind ever since Toomey announced his retirement. She was depressed about the anniversary of her divorce, but she thought that at least her state had a chance at electing someone good. Her optimism had drained as it became clear that the establishment was going to do everything possible to nominate Representative Brian Fitzpatrick. Weak little neocon who would never get voters to turn out for him. _Didn’t they know that he would lose_?

It was in the middle of lunch with Dwight and Angela, ranting to unexpectedly sympathetic ears about the weakness of the GOP, that she thought that she should run. Someone had to do it. Dwight and Angela had been supportive of her plan, and it was Dwight that suggested she take advantage of the reunion to announce. She wasn’t sure how many people would care about the reunion, but looking out at the large crowd dispelled that fear. 

And now Jim had announced he was running. That came out of nowhere. Of course, he probably felt the same way. She looked at him and they made eye contact for the first time that night.

In the background she heard the moderator announcing that because of time, they were moving on to audience questions. _Really_ , Pam thought, _I don’t even get to explain why I’m running_?

Hopefully audience question would let her explain more. Indeed, the first audience member asked “Is it awkward for you two to be running against each other?”

Jim answered, smiling as if he was saying something funny, “Before today, we had no idea we were both running, so it’s hard to say.”

“Plus,” Pam added, “Unless Jim has changed more than I knew, we aren’t actually running against each other quite yet. That’s only if we win both of our primaries.”

“Wait, you mean one of you is a Republican?” the same member of the audience asked, now as if panicked. Pam raised her hand, and the girl looked like she was about to start crying, which made Pam shake her head. Politics aside, caring that much about your favorite _documentary subject_ seemed a little odd.

“Why don’t we take this opportunity to let both of you explain exactly why you’re running?” the moderator asked.

Pam was glad to hear that. She launched into a slightly extended version of the explanation she had prepared. Putting America first, protecting Americans workers, advocating conservative values. Then it was Jim’s turn, and he started talking all about his crazy socialist ideas. _He’s really gone off the deep end since we got divorced_ , Pam thought. Of course, he would probably say the exact same thing about her.

“Have your politics always been so wildly different?” another audience member asked.

“No, not really,” Jim explained. “We’ve always been members of opposite parties, but I used to be much more of a Liebercrat and her a McCainican.”

Pam laughed at that. _When was the last time she had laughed at something Jim said_? “While I’m not sure if either of those are words anyone has ever used, Jim is, in essence, correct.”

The questions continued, mostly different policy aspects now, and did they think they had a chance to win, to which both of them said yes. An unexpected benefit was that it diverted the audience questions from painful ones Pam didn’t want to answer about her divorce.

After the reunion ended, Pam ran into Jim while walking the back hallways of the auditorium. “So we’re both running for Senate,” she said. “That’s pretty crazy.”

“Yeah,” Jim agreed. They stood facing each other without saying anything. He looked older than he did eight years earlier. Funny how it works.

“Good luck,” Pam said eventually. “At least against Chrissy Houlahan.”

“Good luck to you, too,” Jim said. With nothing more to say, he opened the door for her, and she walked out into the parking lot, back to her car.


	2. Chapter 2

Jim honestly hadn’t been planning on attending the debate. He had to keep the kids a few hours longer than usual, but it wasn’t a big deal. He would drop them off with Pam as soon as it was over. On the bright side, the debate was in Doylestown, so he didn’t have to drive all the way to Allentown. But they had both gotten flexible with their times and places over the year of campaigning.

Jim especially didn’t want to bring the kids to the debate. He knew they would get bored in a minute. But, they insisted they wanted to go see _Mommy_ , and they made them super-promise to behave well, so Jim figured that they would drive up to Doylestown, find somewhere to eat dinner, and then maybe go down to the auditorium and see what their options were.

There wasn’t a lot open on Sunday night in Doylestown, but they found a place to eat, and by the time they finished it was 8:15, so Jim figured they could go watch the last half hour.

It was only as Jim started walking into the building that he wondered if this was a bad idea for reasons unrelated to the kids. Were candidates supposed to attend the other party’s primary debates? Were they allowed to or would he not be let in? It ended up not being a problem. The lady at the front door waved him in without so much as looking at him. Apparently not a lot of people attended Senate primary debates on warm Sunday nights during the summer.

Brian Fitzpatrick was in the middle of speaking when Jim settled down. “Ms. Beesley, you talk big about these extreme social values, and yet you can’t even follow them yourself, and there’s nine years worth of documentary footage to prove it. Wasn’t it Angela who called you the office mattress?”

Jim tried without success to read Pam’s face for emotion. Either he didn’t know her nearly as well he used to, or she was doing an impressive job keeping her expression neutral. Probably both.

“It’s probably true, Congressman, that Angela said that, but I don’t think it’s accurate. I went to bed with fewer people over those nine years than just about anyone else in that office. But I did gain that label, not by doing as it implies, but by failing to stand up for myself. Not the office mattress but the office pushover. Just as America has become the pushover of the world, sending billions of dollars off to countries with lower debt to GDP ratios than us even as we give peanuts to our own people. What are we doing?”

“Ms. Beesley, I understand you lack political experience, but even you must know the necessity of our alliances. America needs to lead the world to a better place. It is our duty.”

“Why, Congressman? Why does America owe that to the rest of the world? Why must we consider letting these so called ‘allies’ leech off of us? It is unacceptable. America needs strong leaders who will put America first!”

Jim had to keep himself from laughing, for a couple of reasons. For starters, because she totally diverted the topic of conversation from what is was moment before. Also, she _kinda sounded like a nut job_. Though Jim had to admit she was good at this.

“If you do not understand how our alliances benefit us—“

And then Pam interrupted him, not talking to him, but turning to face the camera. “Everyone at home, do you think our alliances have benefited you? Everyone struggling to make ends meet, living paycheck to paycheck, do you want to join Brian Fitzpatrick in shipping off your own tax money to foreign countries? Or do you want to join me in ending this globalist scam and putting America first?”

It was at this point, Pam looking forward towards the audience, that Jim knew she recognized him. It happened in an instant that they made eye contact. He gave her a hesitant yet encouraging thumbs up as she kept her eyes on him for just a moment before turning back to the Congressman. Jim didn’t know what to think. _What was she thinking_? His heart started racing, and he wasn’t entirely sure why.

After the end of the debate, he met her in the parking lot. He herded the kids into the backseat before closing the door and turning to face her.

“Trying to do some preparation for the general election? Learn all of my debate secrets?” she asked jokingly.

Jim shook his head. “Ohh, I just figured I’d stop in,” he said. “Moral support.”

“Mm-hm,” Pam said in mock disbelief. Neither of them said anything for a moment. The summer night’s air was warm.

“You did alright,” Jim said.

“Thanks,” Pam replied. “Soo, do _you_ have any debates that I can come crash?”

Jim shook his head. “No, nothing scheduled.” There was another longer pause. “Well,” Jim said, the momentary lack of awkwardness gone, “I should be going.”

Pam nodded and waved goodbye before Jim walked back across the parking lot to his car.

They called Pam’s victory first. Which made sense. The Republican primary wasn’t even close: she beat Fitzpatrick almost two to one. Really, they could have called it as soon as polls closed. The establishmentarians in the media must have been embarrassed that their chosen candidate got beaten so badly. So they called it an hour later at nine o’clock. Fitzpatrick called her to concede at 9:14. Jim called to congratulate her at 9:28.

He really didn’t say much. Just a simple congratulations. He seemed preoccupied by something, presumably the results of his own race. Which Pam understood.

For a good second there, it looked like he wasn’t actually going to be able to pull it off. Pam thought she was going to have to run against Chrissy Houlahan.

She debated which scenario she would prefer. On one hand the Congresswoman seemed like the stronger candidate, being more moderate. Yet, Pam had spent the past year arguing that bring conventionally moderate didn’t make you a stronger candidate. And did she want to run against Jim?

She really didn’t know. It would be weird. Painful, perhaps. Bring up things she didn’t want to think about. But maybe it wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world. He hadn’t been in her life for so long.... Was it weird to think that it might be nice to _see_ him again?

The back and forth bounced around her head all night. After declaring victory, though, she ended up going to bed at a pretty normal time. It took her a while to fall asleep.

When Pam opened her eyes the next morning, the first thing she checked was the status of Jim’s race. They hadn’t called it yet, though that night, more ballots had come in from Philadelphia making things look much better for Jim. He ended up winning by 2.5 points. They called it for him at 3:30 that afternoon. She called him to congratulate him.

The joint statement was his idea. They both told themselves it wouldn’t be needed, neither actually wanting to think about what running against each other would really be like. But, it was, and so while they were on the phone with each other, both sent the statement out in a tweet.

It read: “We don’t agree with each other on a lot. Pennsylvania is going to spend the next three months hearing how we don’t agree with each other. But today, we are united by our victories as outsiders against the chosen candidates of our parties establishment. Last night, Pennsylvania voters sent a powerful message that true populist movements would not become prey to the corrupt establishment. We, Pam Beesly and Jim Halpert, are temporarily united in celebration of this fact.”

“So,” Pam said over the phone, after the statement had been released, “we’re really running against each other.”

“Yeah, crazy.”

“This is going to be weird.”

“Yeah, well,” Jim started. Pam held her breath, waiting to hear him say the part both of them had been too scared to say allowed. “Maybe, there will be some nice parts,” he said quietly, scared.

Even over the phone, Pam could hear his nervous apprehension. It was the most open he had been with her in almost nine years. “Yeah,” she said, and she thought she could hear him exhale in relief. “I hope you’re right.”


	3. Chapter 3

Jim was slightly nervous for his first post-primary Town Hall. It was in Marcus Hook (basically in Delaware but also an area that would seem friendlier for him). In some ways, it wasn’t looking to be any different than his primary town halls. Perhaps he would implement somewhat the advice of many in his campaign to take a more moderate tone now, but on the core issues, he didn’t intend to budge.

There was one subject he would have to speak differently about: Pam. Before the primary, he would totally brush aside any questions about running against his ex wife. They weren’t running against each other yet, he would say. It was a sound political strategy, endorsed by his campaign advisors. Really, Jim knew it wasn’t as much about politics as personal reasons.

But, he couldn’t use that strategy anymore.

The town hall started off pretty well. Someone asked a question about federal funds for repairs to the nearby Commodore Barry Bridge. It was a slightly strange question, a little overspecific, but Jim took the opportunity to reaffirm his commitment to fixing America’s infrastructure, creating thousands of jobs in the process.

The second question was when the trouble began. “What’s it like to be running against your ex wife?”

It really wasn’t as bad as some of the questions Jim had prepared for. He should have answered it confidently and moved on. But he showed weakness right away, leaving a long moment of silence while he scratched the back of his neck with the hand not holding the microphone.

“I don’t think it’s too much different than it would be running against anyone else. I mean, it’s very different in some ways. We’ve tried hard to keep the whole political sphere. And it’s, well...” Jim drifted off. “But the truth is, Pam and I haven’t _really_ talked to each other in a long time. Really, it’s been even longer than we’ve been divorced.”

Jim hoped that would settle the issue. Today was not his lucky day. “So you and Pam weren’t talking even before your divorce?” another audience member asked.

At some point, he was going to have to change the subject himself. Still, he answered, “No, we really weren’t. Right before it happened, well, maybe six months, we weren’t talking hardly at all. I think we were scared. Scared to talk. Because if we did it would become apparent that things just weren’t working anymore.” Jim tried not to show emotion. One would think that after all these years Jim would be able to talk more easily about the end of his marriage. But he couldn’t. In part because it still felt like just yesterday he and Pam were together and everything was fine.

Jim looked out at the woman from his campaign taking questions out in the audience, trying to signal for no more personal questions, but he knew there was no way she got the message. Confirmed when the next audience member asked, “So do you regret your divorce? Especially considering your children?”

Jim took a deep breath before answering a question. _Why doesn’t this damn stage have a chair on it?_ “That’s a hard question to answer,” he admitted. “By the time my marriage ended, there was not much of it left. And I’m not going to say I regret taking my job in Philadelphia. I do wish I got to spend more time with my kids. But that doesn’t mean I think getting divorced was the wrong decision.” Then he added, “I think it’s time to move on to a new topic. No more questions about my personal life.”

Still, another audience member managed to add, “I just want to say that I don’t know how we trust someone who abandoned his wife and kids to get a new job won’t treat the people of Pennsylvania the same way. That’s not a question, just a statement.”

Jim really didn’t want to answer that. But he knew he had to, so he said “While I disapprove of you phrasing, in principle you have a point. If there comes a time when I’ve been in the Senate ten or twelve years, it won’t be hard to forget the reasons why I first came. Look at what’s happened to Mitch McConnell. That’s why I will never waver in my commitment to legislative term limits.”

The next question, thank God, was about solar panels, and the rest of the night focused on the economy and the environment, with some other predictable political issues sprinkled in, but Jim couldn’t stop thinking about those questions about Pam.

It was still bouncing up and down in his mind when he picked the kids up at the Allentown McDonalds. The kids climbed into his car while he stood by Pam’s to talk to her. “How are things going?” she asked.

“Well, I had a town hall last night. Lots of questions about us. It was difficult.”

Pam laughed at that, which offended Jim. He tried not to let any hurt show on his face, and if Pam recognized anything, she ignored it. “Difficult? Did you not know all of the answers?”

“This might be news to you,” and now there was no hiding the anger in Jim’s voice, “but the fact that we got divorced is still hard to deal with.”

“Come on, Jim,” Pam said, sounding light. She tried to tap his arm but he yanked it away. “You’re like Gavin Newsom.”

“Huh?”

“Didn’t you know?” she said, “he used to be married to Kimberly Guilfoyle.”

“Wow,” Jim said, “I wonder how they interact nowadays.” Then, still irritated with Pam, he said, “Well, Ms. Guilfoyle, I’ll see you soon,” and turned to walk back to the car.

As he looked back at Pam from his car, he felt pity for her, knowing she would soon go through the same thing he did.

Pam’s first post-primary Town Hall was out in Williamsport the following Monday. Luckily, she got more than just the first “easy” question. In fact, it was almost the end of the night and her marriage with Jim hadn’t even come up when someone asked, “How do you plan to treat America’s position as the leader of the free world?”

Pam laughed at that one. “I’ll tell you,” she said, “actually, I don’t. _Leader of the free world?_ Who cares about being leader of the free world. This country is dealing with poverty, homelessness, hunger, and record low happiness, and you expect me to care about the rest of the world? Let me explain something very clearly: _I do not care about the rest of the world_. I am not running to lead this so-called ‘free world.’ I am running to lead the United States of America and _only_ the United States of America. If this ‘free world’ wants to follow us, I’m not going to stop them, but I’ll tell you another thing: we’re going to do something about the way so many of these countries leech off of us. It is so weak that we continue to ship billions of dollars of _your_ tax dollars off to foreign countries. I promise, as your Senator, I will put America first, and if I did not do so, I would be failing in my duty as a Senator.”

That one did pretty well with the audience. Pam heard more clapping and cheering than she had all night, and the night had gone pretty well. If she was smart, she would have ended it right there. But she wasn’t, so she went along as the event manager announced two more questions.

The first one: “Do you wish you had done more to prevent your divorce with Jim?”

Pam frowned. They didn’t even wait before jumping deep into her personal life. But she should have known this was coming. Of course it was.

“There are times I think that,” Pam said. “Times I think I should have moved to Philly with Jim. Let myself take a job there.” Pam sighed. “But I didn’t want to move, I never would have forgiven myself for moving, and I never would have forgiven him. I just don’t know if there was a way it was going to work. I just can’t think how that would have happened.”

So the microphone got passed down to another audience member, and Pam was praying to a return to political issues, foreign policy was especially good, but she knew that wasn’t happening. And as soon as she saw where the microphone had landed, she knew she was in big trouble as she instantly hated the woman holding it just from her face.

“Don’t you think you need to _take responsibility_ for your divorce?” the woman asked.

Her voice was terrible, but her question felt to Pam like a slap in the face. Pam took a long moment to prepare her self while keep her face totally neutral for fear that if she showed any expression she would start crying. _No crying at Town Halls_. “I don’t think so,” Pam said. “There are things I could have done that would have bettered our chances. I never denied that, but I don’t think I was wrong not to do them. The real problem, I suppose, is a societal one.” And now Pam wasn’t even thinking about what she was saying. No crying at Town Halls. “And maybe it’s time to think more about how Jim and I got here, not as a couple, but as members of society. Specifically, maybe it’s time to rethink our allowance of no-fault divorce.”

Pam realized pretty quickly she shouldn’t have said that. But, that was the end of the town hall, so she drove back to Scranton, which was a 90 minute drive, and in her car, crying _was_ allowed.

Jim had the kids, and even though it was earlier than usual, when she got home, Pam grabbed her iPhone and hopped into bed. She had many new texts. Jim was first on the list.

“I saw parts of your town hall,” he had texted her, followed by, “It’s not so easy being Kimberly Guilfoyle is it?”

Pam sighed. On some level, she knew he was right. “I’m sorry I laughed at you the other day,” she messaged, followed by, “You were right,” and “Difficult is the best way to describe it.”

“Thank you,” Jim texted, then, “I appreciate that.”

“Listen Pam,” he sent after a moment. “I don’t we don’t see eye to eye on a lot but you have to understand something.”

“What?” Pam texted when he didn’t send anything for a moment. She hoped he wasn’t about to say what she thought he was.

“You can’t go after the no-fault divorce. You can’t take out your anger at me out on the entire country.”

Pam slammed her phone down on her bed. _What right did he have, condescending little bastard?_ She wanted to go cuss him out and tell him exactly what he could do to himself. But what would that prove? That he was right? Plus, if anyone might know how she was feeling on that stage, it was him.

Pam realized she had been crying again. She brushed the tears out of her eyes and picked up her phone again. “I know you’re angry, and I can’t blame you, but you know I’m right,” he had texted, and then, before realizing she wasn’t going to respond, “Pam?”

She moved back out to check other messages. One from her campaign manager, Lauren, told her that opposing no-fault divorce was a risky move, and going forward, it might be better to concentrate on more known to be popular policies. Pam wanted to send back something snarky and bitchy, but she knew Lauren was right, and she was a really good campaign manager, so instead Pam just texted “Yeah, I had figured as much myself,” and then, “we can talk more abt it tmrw morning.”

Nothing else on Pam’s phone demanded attention, so she moved back to her text chain with Jim and read over it, careful not to do anything that could let him know where she was. Pam started crying staring at her phone screen, and as she cried herself to sleep she wanted to be angry at Jim but the only person she could be angry at was Brian Fitzpatrick for being such a spineless little neocon he lost a primary to a receptionist.


	4. Chapter 4

The dueling rallies had been Pam’s idea. Well, not Pam’s idea, she hadn’t gone and said “Let’s have rallies at the same time in the same town.” But Jim had scheduled the rally in Latrobe first, and then Pam had swooped in and scheduled one at the same time, same day, on the other side of town. There were probably political reasons for it, but it made Jim’s life more convenient: they were staying at the same hotel, and in the morning, Pam would have the kids off the Jim from there.

Jim had spent the morning meeting with leaders of the black community in Pittsburgh, and as he drove out to Latrobe (which wasn’t that long, only like an hour), he focused on shifting his mindset to address the rural whites of Latrobe. It was harder than one might expect if only because the wrong move could be campaign ending. It did make Jim feel a little uncomfortable, but he figured that it only made sense if you were addressing a group of people to highlight the things you had in common.

At the rally, Jim was introduced by a local factory worker, someone his campaign had found to really relate to the blue collar folks. He talked for longer than Jim expected, but he seemed pretty effective, so Jim didn’t mind.

When Jim came out, he basically only touched on the economic issues. Which he had planned on; trumpeting his social views didn’t seem like a winning strategy. But a lot of the crowd seemed to appreciate things he said about raising the minimum wage, expanding social security, and creating single-payer health care. And as far as reaching out to rural voters, he thought he did alright.

When Jim drove up to the hotel, he saw Pam had beaten him there, though she claimed it was by just moments. He had made the reservations for the both of them, so he went up to the front desk to check in while Pam and the kids waited behind. He thought that from the receptionist’s view, they might have looked like a normal, happy family. Except he seemed to recognize both of them from their political roles, not very normal. And when Jim reached up to grab the keys, there was no ring on his finger, not very happy.

Jim and Pam dropped off their bags and met out in the hallway. He would be sharing a room with Phillip while Pam shared with Cece. “So,” Pam said, “I was thinking of going to dinner somewhere with the kids. We haven’t eaten yet.”

Jim nodded. “There was an all day diner I saw just a block away that one should be able to walk to.”

The pair stared at each other for a long time. Both of them thought they knew what the other was thinking but were hesitant to be the one to say it out loud. “Maybe, we could all go,” Jim said at last, very hesitantly, looking away from Pam now and scratching the back of his neck.

“Yeah, okay, sure,” Pam said. “I think that would work.” She smiled hesitantly and pulled a finger through her hair.

Jim went to tell the kids that they were all going to dinner, and they looked highly surprised, which made Jim slightly sad, but he knew he couldn’t blame them. Pam and he hadn’t gone to dinner together in almost a decade and since before the kids were old enough to really remember. _Was this a bad idea?_

They all got seated at a booth table where Pam and Cece sat down on one side with Jim and Pam on the other. The kids both ordered spaghetti and meatballs, Jim ordered a burger, and Pam got a chicken sandwich. The kids noticed a mini arcade in the corner that they were very excited to go try out, but they were told to finish their supper first. After they finished, Pam and Jim both fished out their spare quarters and let the kids go play.

“So,” Pam said now that it was just the two of them, “How was your rally today?”

“Oh, I thought it went pretty well. You?”

“Yep, same on my end. I assume when you’re out in these parts you have more on some of the economic aspects?”

“No, usually I just tell them how I want to defund the police and take away their guns. That usually goes over really well out here.”

Pam laughed at that. Actually, she laughed _kinda hard_ at that, Jim didn’t think it was that funny. “So what’s coming up next for you?” she asked.

“Well, I’m driving back to Philly and hanging around there for a few days. You?”

“Oh, I’m staying out here for a couple more days. Altoona tomorrow, and then up by Coudersport.”

Jim nodded. At that point, the waiter came by, and Jim asked him for the check without even thinking if they intended to split it. That wouldn’t have done very well for the little “happy family” game they seemed to be playing. And when the check came, he didn’t even give Pam a chance to think about paying.

They gathered up the kids and exited the restaurant. Phillip asked if they were going back to the hotel, to which Pam said yes. Jim caught her eye and gave her a look, but it was clear she didn’t know what he was thinking. _Don’t push it too far_ , Jim tried to tell himself, but he went ahead anyway. “Pam, if your okay with it, and if you aren’t that’s totally fine, there’s an ice cream place another half block up this road.”

Pam smiled. “Okay,” she said, “sounds like fun.”

The competing rallies actually were Pam’s idea. She was brainstorming with some people from her campaign about how to deal with Jim’s rural push. She was very strong with rural voters, sure, but when you take Jim’s economically populist message to a lot of old Union Democrats, a well attended rally was bound to pick off quite a few, and Pam couldn’t afford that.

So, Pam had to make sure Jim didn’t have a well attended rally by holding a competing rally of her own. So it was purely for politics that Jim and Pam ended up in Latrobe together. But there were other nice things about it, too.

The kids were clearly loving it. They thought it was strange at first, having dinner with both parents. But by the time they started eating, it became clear to Pam that this was some long held dream of theirs.

That’s not to say Pam didn’t enjoy it, too.

Walking back from the ice cream shop to the hotel was strange. It felt like nothing had changed. She and Jim both held their ice cream cones in their right hands, and it was a struggle for Pam to prevent herself from reaching out and entwining Jim’s free hand with hers. Not because she wanted to so badly, it was just instinct. She ended up moving her ice cream cone into her other hand.

When they got back into the hotel, Phillip and Cece ran over into Pam’s room. “Are you guys gonna play in here for a while?” Pam asked.

“ _Play_? We are not _literally_ five years old!” Cece said. Pam took that as a yes, so she headed over to Jim’s room.

“The kids are hanging out in my room,” Pam said as Jim opened the door. Jim had changed into his pajamas, and Pam wasn’t sure what she expected him to say.

“Oh. You wanna come in?” Perhaps that was what she expected. So Pam entered entered Jim’s room and sat down on one side of his bed, and they watched TV for a stretch of time.

“How have you been doing for the past, well, decade?” Jim asked during a break in the programming.

Pam didn’t know how to answer that. How honest was she supposed to be. “It’s been hard,” she said. “I thought it might get easier. It has gotten easier in terms of moving through my life. But it’s never gotten easier to believe. It still seems like this whole thing could all just be a dream.”

Jim nodded. “Yeah, I know the feeling. But, I’m not sure if there was anything we could have done.”

“Well, that’s what we said at the time,” Pam said. She wasn’t entirely sure where she was going. “I just, I don’t know, looking back, it’s easy to find things we could have done.” Jim didn’t have a response to that.

“We made a lot of vows on our wedding day,” Pam continued, “And I don’t remember what all of them were. But I can’t imagine we followed through with them.” That was enough to get Pam to start crying. “We failed, Jim,” she said, softly.

Jim reached one hand over and patted her shoulder awkwardly.

After giving herself a moment to calm down, Pam went to go check on the kids. Surprisingly, she found them both fast asleep on the queen bed. They looked cute. “I’m not literally five,” she heard Cece saying, but at this moment they didn’t seem too much older than five. But they were. Still, they looked so cute sleeping like they were, and Pam didn’t want to disturb them, so she quietly closed the door and went back to Jim’s room, but not before taking out her iPhone and taking a picture of the kids.

When she returned, Pam explained to Jim that the kids were sleeping and showed him the picture. “They’re cute,” he said.

“They grow up so fast,” Pam replied. “I don’t want to wake them.”

“Yeah,” Jim agreed. “Makes sense. You should sleep in here. Don’t worry, I’ll sleep on the floor.”

Pam was shocked. She had meant not wanting to wake them in a rhetorical sense. “Jim, I can’t make you sleep on the floor.”

“Don’t worry about,” he said. “Really,” and he gave Pam a comforting smile. Surprised as she was, she didn’t feel like arguing, so she agreed.

Jim grabbed a couple pillows of the bed and the spare blanket out of the closet while Pam got ready for bed. When they were ready for bed, Jim lay down on the floor while Pam turned out the lights.

“Goodnight, Jim,” she whispered into the darkness.

“Goodnight, Pam,” the darkness whispered back in a voice she deeply missed being able to fall asleep with.


	5. Chapter 5

The first debate was in Philadelphia, at an auditorium. Which Pam wasn’t sure was quite fair, but what was she going to do? Plus, did anyone even pay attention to Senate debates? So, she left the kids at her mom’s house and drove down to Philly.

There would be a couple people from her campaign joining her backstage, but when she pulled her car into the auditorium parking lot, she was all alone. On the way into the building, she spotted Jim.

“Hey there!” he said. “You ready for this thing?”

“Oh, yeah,” she said. “I’m ready to crush you. You won’t even know what hit you.”

Jim laughed playfully. “Al- _right, Beesly_ ,” he said.

Then neither of them said anything and the awkwardness returned. It had been happening more often over the past few weeks that for just a second they could act like they would have once upon a time before the quick remembrance that they were, in fact, divorced. That their marriage had failed.

“Actually,” Jim said, “I was thinking. Would you be interested in getting a drink together when this is over?”

That came as a surprise to Pam. She smiled uncertainly. “If I didn’t know any better, I would think you were asking me on a date,” she said.

“Oh, no, no, no,” Jim said, quickly retreating the conversation. “No, no, no, no, no. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry,” Pam said, and that quieted Jim. She thought about it for a moment. She didn’t have anything else going on. What was there to lose? “It sounds like a fine idea. Not as a date, obviously. Just, you know.”

That made Jim smile. “Right, of course. Alright! Let’s do it.” Neither of them said anything for a moment. “Well, good luck,” Jim said before walking into the auditorium, leaving Pam to wonder what exactly had just happened.

The debate went pretty smoothly, at least from Pam’s point of view. There was an awkward moment near the beginning when the two tried to figure out what to address each other as. Neither had any political positions to reference. Jim went first, calling her “Ms. Beesly.” He meant it to be more formal, but it felt to Pam the exact opposite, forcing her to remember clearly the intimate moments when he would call her “Beesly” affectionately. By the look on his face, he didn’t like the sound of it either. “You can call me Pam,” she said.

The first question about her marriage was directed at Pam about an hour in. She had hoped the moderator would avoid that topic but supposed the network just did what the viewers wanted to hear.

“At root, what do you think the cause of your divorce was?”

It wasn’t that bad, really, compared to some of the questions Pam had taken at town halls. “We just wanted different things too badly for there to be any way of it working out. I love Jim, but sometimes no matter how much you love each other, things just don’t work out. Now, I think the whole idea of a debate is for Jim and I to argue over our differing positions, but I believe Jim and I happen to agree almost totally on this subject, so why don’t we move to something else?”

The moderator signaled for Jim to go. “Pam’s right,” he said, “I agree with her on this issue. Down to each word.”

The moderator seemed agreeable towards moving on. “Pam, you have called Jim’s proposals regarding student debt immoral. Why is this?”

 _That’s more like it_ , Pam thought. “What Jim wants to do, by forgiving all student loans, is let people who made the decision to go to college totally off the hook. Now, I sympathize with the struggles of student debt, but no one is forced to go to college. Many people made the wise decision not to attend college, and these people should not be forced to pay for the mistakes of others.”

Jim, after being asked the same question by the moderator, answered quickly. “What Pam wants to do is totally eliminate government student loans. She’s admitted this. This would destroy the opportunities of underprivileged students, especially those of color, and take away one’s right to an education. How is _that_ moral?”

Pam was quick to respond: “I don’t think that everyone has a right to have a college education. You can be extremely successful with only a high school education. Still, because for so many college is a good investment, it is inevitable that many private companies would rush in to make that investment through private loans, and they would do a much better job than the government. What we see with the current student loan system is the allowance for runaway costs when administrators see the limitless cash offered by the government and create boatloads of useless administrative and ‘diversity’ positions for which students then foot the bill. How is _that_ moral?”

Pam took a deep breath after that long response while Jim prepared his answer. And such, the debate continued.

Right after the debate, Pam got held up by some members of her campaign, but it wasn’t too long before she found herself walking out into the parking lot and meeting Jim.

“You did pretty well,” Jim told Pam as they sat down at the bar. He ordered for the two of them, getting Pam’s drink right even after all these years.

“Same to you,” Pam said. “I mean, your policies sounded insane, but your debate skills were pretty good.”

Jim laughed at that. “You thought my policies were insane, you should see the woman I was going against.”

“Oh, yeah, I think I’d like to meet her,” Pam said. “She sounds pretty smart.”

Jim offered her another drink, but she pointed out that she had to drive home. She wasn’t even done with her first, anyway. Jim got another one; his apartment was within walking distance.

Mentioning his apartment gave Pam an opportunity. “Have you moved since that place with Darryl? Because if so I don’t think I’ve seen your new place.”

Jim nodded at her. “Yeah, I moved pretty soon after I ended up out here full time. It’s a nice place. You want to come by?”

Not wanting to think about exactly what was happening, Pam quickly accepted the offer.

Jim would suppose he had started it, what with asking her to get drinks. It was probably stupid. Not only were they divorced, they were running against each other for the Senate. But they had had fun. Now, though, she was coming back to his apartment. That one, he thought, wasn’t entirely his fault.

They walked side by side as he directed her through the Philadelphia night. It wasn’t a long walk, but it was pretty chilly. Jim was tempted for just an instant to offer her his coat, but knew he couldn’t. It would be too... too something.

At one point, they passed by a CVS and Jim stopped. “Do you mind if I stop to pick up some prescription toothpaste?”

Pam looked mildly amused, but she wasn’t going to object. Instead, she followed him in, squinting due to the stores bright lights. They waited for just a minute, Jim preferred coming at times like this when there was almost no line, and he stared at the blood pressure cuff, thinking about the time Dwight tried to prove he was attracted to Cathy.

When Jim got to the counter, he noticed Pam had disappeared into one of the aisles. She showed up a minute later with a bottle of laundry detergent. “I need more laundry detergent,” she explained.

She got in line behind Jim, waiting to check out after him. “Just put it up there,” he said, gesturing to the counter where he was planning to pay.

“Oh, no,” she said, “I can’t—“

“Pam!” Jim interrupted. “It’s okay. I can pay for your laundry detergent.” He chuckled quietly at the situation while Pam placed the bottle on the counter. The woman behind the counter placed the detergent and the toothpaste into the same plastic bag, which Jim grabbed to carry as they finished the walk to his apartment.

When they got to the apartment, Jim gave Pam a tour and then flipped on the television, surprised when the first thing he saw was coverage of their debate. They were playing the section where they debated Common Core, and he called Pam over to sit down next to him on the couch and watch.

Local news morphed into _Cheers_ reruns, and by that point Pam had settled in enough to stay for at least a little while.

There was something pressing on Jim’s mind that he worried would screw everything up but knew he had to bring up. “At the debate today, when you said you loved me... you didn’t use the past tense.”

Pam looked surprised as she turned her head to look at Jim, and he worried he had screwed up. She shrugged before saying “Yeah. It’s true I guess. I mean, it’s not like it once was, obviously. But, really, I don’t know if I ever stopped loving you. Did you?”

Despite her example, Jim couldn’t figure out how to answer the question. “No, I never completely stopped. Probably never will. In some ways, I think, it’s because of the way things ended. We didn’t fight or anything. It just... faded out.” He paused. “Sometimes I think it would have been easier if we had fought more. It would have felt less ambiguous. Less like we had given up too soon.”

Now Pam looked empathetic. “I know the feeling,” she said.

Pam turned her head back towards the TV, but leaned in closer to Jim. As they fell asleep next to each other on the couch (because they fell asleep next to each other on the couch), Jim was vaguely aware of the fact the she was leaning her head on his chest and his arm was put across her shoulders, holding her close.

When Jim woke up, Pam was gone. He looked around the apartment and found the laundry detergent gone from the CVS bag and a note taped to the fridge. She clearly had been crying when she wrote it. It read:

“Jim, I’m sorry, but I can’t do this. I don’t even know what we’re doing, but I can’t. There’s too much pain. I can’t do it.

It’s not because of the Senate, I just can’t do this.

\---Pam”


	6. Chapter 6

Jim hadn’t really talked to Pam since the first debate. Well, they had texted each other enough to drop off and pick up the kids. And they said the required “Hello.” So really, they were talking to each other as much as they had for the first eight and a half years after the divorce. And a few of the months right before, too.

Jim knew that it was probably for the best. That’s what he told himself, at least. And he was probably right. But as he headed over to the second debate, he wondered how it was going to go down.

It went alright at the beginning. Mostly alright. Pam and he started get on each other’s nerves.

About one hour in, the moderator asked Jim to explain his support for a 15 dollar minimum wage. “It’s simple, really,” Jim said, “No one should be getting paid less than 15 dollars an hour. That’s not enough to support yourself. That’s not enough for anyone to live the life they deserve. If anything, 15 dollars is still too little. It is immoral to allow this to continue. And yet, my opponent wants to go in the _opposite_ direction. She wants to eliminate the minimum wage. Let people work a day and get paid pennies and she doesn’t care.”

Pam responded to that immediately: “That’s not true Jim. What I want to do is eliminate the _federal_ minimum wage. Almost every state has a minimum wage of its own, and even if one didn’t, no one would be getting paid pennies for a full day’s work. Really, though, this just isn’t a job for the federal government. It has too much on its plate already, plus the cost of living varies so widely across this nation. I don’t know how it’s fair to enforce a national minimum wage when you can buy a two story home in Mississippi for the price of a 50 square foot closet in San Francisco.”

“For starters, you say so much on its plate, but raising the minimum wage really isn’t complicated, and the only reason it is is that you Republicans are making it so. But also, you want to talk about fair, Pam? What I don’t know is how it’s fair for these people in the one percent to gain immense amounts of money while everyone else only gets poorer. You know how they do it? They do it by paying their workers poverty wages, and it’s time that we do something about it.”

“What I don’t get Jim is _why do you care_? These people have the opportunity to vote for governors who support higher minimum wages. Why do you have to force it onto people who don’t want it? And that’s not just big corporations, you should know, it’s many, many small businesses who would be put out of business.”

Jim took a deep breath. _Why did he care_? Pam was really frustrating him. _How could he make her see_? But, of course, he couldn’t, and that wasn’t the point. “ _Why do I care_? There are so many people in this country struggling so hard because they don’t get paid a good living wage. In _this state_ , Pam, the state we’re running to represent—“

“So run for governor!” Pam exclaimed, raising her voice to interrupt Jim. “Run for governor and increase the minimum wage for the people who voted for you, but there’s no need to force this on Mississippi and Arkansas!”

“Pam, it’s immoral to allow anyone in this continue to be forced to work for poverty wages. And it’s true that cost of living varies throughout this country, but I don’t see that and think that workers in Mississippi and Arkansas don’t deserve a living wage, I see that and think that perhaps the minimum wage in California should be 20 dollars, 25 dollars, maybe even 30 dollars. And if there are any workers out there who could get by off of 7.25, there are so few of them they might as well not matter—“

“Hear that, rural voters? You don’t matter!” Pam said, both interrupting him and turning up the volume again. She was really interrupting him tonight!

“That’s not what I said,” Jim pointed out before she had a chance to really get started, “but come November, why don’t we let rural voters let us know if they think they get paid enough?” She didn’t have a sarcastic response for that, finally letting Jim finish his thought. “Pam, what’s really concerning to me here is that you see people suffering and have no desire to help. Let them suffer. I know you well, and I really don’t think you actually believe that, but I wish you would see how that’s what you’re doing.”

The moderator chimed in after that last sentence: “Alright, thank you, Mr. Halpert, that actually transitions us into our next topic.” Pam objected immediately, demanding to be able to give a response, but the moderator wasn’t having any of it. It gave Jim time, though, to think, _What new topic could I possibly have transitioned to?_ He realized unhappily in only a couple of seconds that they were going to be asked about their history. He _really_ didn’t want to be asked about that tonight, although it was lie he really ever would have. “This question actually comes from Twitter user @RandallJones58,” (oh, that wasn’t a good sign) “and I’d like to remind everyone watching at home to enter their questions with the hashtag #PennSenateDebate.

“Mr. Halpert, and I’m reading this word for word, you let your marriage fall apart when you decided you wanted a new job. It’s all on video for everyone to see. How can we trust that you won’t give up on the people of Pennsylvania the next time you find something you think is more interesting?”

 _Crap_. That was a bad question. Jim had to take a moment just to keep himself from crying. He looked forward into the audience, knowing he couldn’t bring himself to look at Pam. Luckily, this meant he wasn’t looking at her when she gave her response.

“I wouldn’t worry about that, you guys,” she said. “I think Jim’s already done more to show he care about representing you all than he ever did to show he cared about me.”

Jim was shocked. He controlled his expression, not wanting to betray too much emotion. He reminded himself again not to cry, although he didn’t feel as much like crying as he did a moment earlier. He was too hurt to cry. Too hurt and angry and disappointed and sad and _she really said that_ and _she really believed that_.

 _That’s bullshit_ , he thought. Total bullshit and he couldn’t believe that she said that. He wanted to say that out loud, but knew he couldn’t. Still, it was getting to be too long and he hadn’t said anything. Some people in the audience had laughed, laughed like Junior High Schoolers did when they thought they were about to witness a schoolyard fight.

Jim ended up laughing, too. It was bitter and hurt and totally without humor. “I don’t like being insulted to my face,” he said, calm, emotionless, cold. “And there’s an argument to be made that if I had any self respect, I’d walk off this stage right now. But I’m not going to do that.”

And so the debate continued. The moderator got it back on track with a question about gun control. But Jim spent the rest of the debate looking out at the audience. He didn’t want to know how hurt he would feel if he met Pam’s eyes.

Pam knew she screwed up almost as soon as she finished talking. She had crossed a line. A wide, bright red line with flashing lights that had been in place for almost ten years and she had walked right across it. Even as he refused to face her, she recognized the hurt on her ex-husband’s face.

She should have apologized to him right after. That would have been smart. But she wasn’t thinking. She had a couple of surface level interactions with people from her campaign before getting into her car and driving home.

The night was dark and rainy. There would have been something thematic about listening to some sort of sad music, but she wasn’t: the radio was turned to some horrible rap station, and she couldn’t have been bothered to change it. She thought for a moment about saying something at her next rally about the recent sharp decline in music quality. Mostly, though, she focused all her thoughts on the road, not letting herself drift into any other places.

Her mom greeted her at the door, informing her that the kids were already asleep. “Did it record?” Pam asked, sounding frantic.

After closing the front door, Helene moved closer to her daughter and rubbed her arms. “Are you okay, Pam?” she asked.

Pam pulled away from her mom. “Did it record?” she asked, louder this time.

“I don’t know,” her mom said. “I don’t remember seeing anything.”

Pam rushed into the living room and grabbed the remote control. _If that damn Tivo box didn’t work I’m gonna smash the thing into two pieces_ , she thought. After hastily working the control, her mom standing in the background, Pam pulled up the night’s recording and fast-forwarded. She reached the part where they debated the minimum wage and braced herself for what was coming.

Pam wasn’t prepared for what she saw. Only seeing his face from the side, Pam hadn’t realized just how hurt Jim looked. It was only for a second, too, which was almost worse. To any other observer, it might have looked like nothing was wrong. But having been married to him for years, Pam knew otherwise.

She rewound the recording, thinking it couldn’t be worse the third time. She was wrong. Pam started crying, surprised only by the fact that it had taken her this long, and her mom walked behind her, rubbing her shoulders.

“Why did I say that?” Pam asked through tears. She tried to remember what was happening. Jim was being an idiot about the minimum wage, but Jim being an idiot was kinda the whole point of the debate. He had been interrupting her left and right. And the moderator was totally biased. But Pam didn’t think any of that was the reason. It had been her who had crossed the line, there was no questioning that. It wasn’t even true, she knew. Jim had showed her he cared about her more times than she could remember.

He was going to hate her, wasn’t he? She supposed she wouldn’t be alone in the club of women hated by their ex-husbands. And they were running against each other for Senate. But she didn’t want Jim to hate her. He was the father of her children. And even for as long as they were divorced they had always believed that they were once upon a time a good couple. Pam had just gone after that. And it wasn’t even true.

“I need to apologize,” Pam said, thinking out loud again. _Apologize publicly_ , she thought. _If I say something publicly it only makes sense to apologize for it publicly, too._ “I’m going to call Lauren.”

She left the living room to do so. Lauren picked up quickly despite the late hour. She had initially hoped to call a press conference and apologize live, but Lauren talked her out of that. Still, she wanted to do something more than a written statement, so they made plans to film a video and put it on her Twitter. Lauren warned her that apologizing might not be the best political decision, but Pam didn’t care. She also wanted to apologize to Jim personally, but that wasn’t up to Lauren, so Pam thanked her and hung up.

When Pam walked back into the living room, she moved to rewind the recording again but her mother stopped her by wrapping her arms around her. “Why did I say that?” she asked again, and this time she wanted an answer.

“Is it true?” her mom asked.

“No!” Pam said. “Not at all.” Her voice sounded tired and she planned to go to bed soon, although she didn’t know how long it would take her to fall asleep.

“Well, maybe some small part of you doesn’t agree with that.”


	7. Chapter 7

The morning after the debate, Lauren, Pam’s campaign manager, tried to talk her out of releasing the apology. Well, she didn’t really try to talk her out of it. She just explained that it might not be the best move politically. After all, no one in the media had even registered that what she said was something to apologize for. But Pam didn’t care.

The video was simple, short, and too the point. “Last night, at a debate, I made a comment indicating that when we were married, Jim never showed he cared about me. This was not only unnecessarily mean, it was categorically untrue. I am sorry that I said this. It was totally wrong of me.” Pam sent it out through her campaign’s Twitter account.

She had texted Jim about an hour before releasing the video: “I’m sorry, Jim. What I said isn’t true. Please let me come apologize in person.” She waited a while without any response before texting him the video. She didn’t know why she didn’t that, he was sure to have seen it after all. Perhaps in some way it felt more personal to him.

Pam spent the next couple of days out by Erie. It went pretty well, as far as campaigning. She talked a lot about bringing back manufacturing jobs and returning the region to its former glory. Jim still wouldn’t answer her texts.

After Erie, Pam was heading back to the Philadelphia area for more campaigning. After a long day in Philly, she felt like going home and going to bed, but she was determined to go apologize to Jim in person. Remembering where he lived from the night after the first debate, Pam walked to his apartment and knocked on the door.

He took a moment to come, and Pam would have wondered if he was home if she couldn’t hear him inside. _What if he wouldn’t answer the door?_ At that point, Pam would just have to give up on apologizing in person. She wondered why she even cared so much anyway. She had apologized publicly and over text. She didn’t expect him to forgive her. _Why was she here?_

When he opened the door, he didn’t seem surprised to see her. He didn’t say anything, or really react at all. This was the chance Pam had wanted. Of course, now that she was here, she didn’t know what to say. “I’m sorry,” she started. “I shouldn’t have said that. It’s not true and I’m so sorry.”

Jim nodded. “We should talk,” he said, an artificial calm in his voice, and he gestured for her to come inside. She walked in but didn’t sit down.

They stayed silent for a long moment. Pam wasn’t sure if she was supposed to go first. “Again, I’m really sorry,” she said.

“I heard you,” Jim said. After another long moment, he asked, “Why did you say it?”

“I don’t know, Jim. Sometimes, you know, it just slips out even when—“

“Bullshit,” Jim interrupted. “That’s bullshit.” He waited for Pam to respond.

“I don’t know, I guess I was just a little annoyed after that minimum wage segment and I wasn’t thinking right and—“

“That’s not it either,” Jim said without letting her finish.

“Jim... I don’t know what you want.”

“The truth, Pam.”

Pam shook her head. “Are you looking for me to say that what I said was true? Because it’s not, Jim, I know it’s not.”

“Uh-huh,” Jim said, and Pam couldn’t tell if he was being sarcastic. “You know it’s not. Rationally. Logically. But some small part of you believed what you said was absolutely true.”

Pam looked back at Jim. It was the exact same thing her mom had told her. She didn’t know how to respond.

“When did I not show you I cared about you?” Jim asked. _Was Jim seriously asking that?_ Pam had to think for a moment about her response. She hadn’t come to start fighting, the opposite actually. But she didn’t want to let him get away with asking that question.

“Jim, you didn’t show you cared about me when you left me to go get a new job in Philly. And left our children, too.” Well, he looked hurt by that. If Pam had come to apologize, she had failed. But this time, at least, she had said something she believed was absolutely true.

Jim didn’t know why he let Pam into his apartment. He’d known it was her immediately; he recognized the way she knocked. What was letting her in supposed to accomplish? Either way, it wasn’t going very well.

“Pam,” he said, replying to her, “we’re not going down this road again. We both made our decisions. You could have come to Philly. You chose not to.” It’s the line Jim had told himself over the years of having been divorced.

“That’s not the same, Jim. We had lived in Scranton for years. It was our home. Still is mine. I didn’t decide to go out and get a new job without consulting you. I didn’t plan to pick up and move our entire family without asking you!”

“But it _is_ the same, Pam. You had your opinions about the future of the family and I had mine. Just because your path was more similar to what we _had_ been doing doesn’t make it any better. That’s like saying that we’ve been facing a problem for so long we shouldn’t try to solve.”

That made Pam angry, Jim could tell. “A _problem_?” She looked like she was going to throw something at him. “I’m so glad to know our marriage was just a _problem_. That needed to be _solved_.” By this point she had practically doubled her volume. “You know Jim, once upon a time you gave up a big fancy job in a big city to come be with me. That was one of the happiest days of my life. Six years later you did the exact opposite. So don’t pretend you don’t know when you didn’t show you cared about me.”

Jim sighed, trying to stay calm, but it was hard to resist the temptation to stop yelling to. “That was a different situation, Pam. And again, you did the exact same thing—“

“NO!” Pam yelled. “No, no, no! That’s not the same!”

“It IS the same Pam. We both decided we weren’t going to compromise on our life situations and our careers, even for the sake of our marriage. YOU made that decision! I made that decision.”

“So your big point is that everything you did is okay because _neither_ of us cared about the other?”

Jim finally managed to quiet his voice. “I never stopped caring about you, Pam,” he said.

“Right you just starting caring about OTHER things more. Like your _job_! And for the record, I suspect that if you win this election you’re going to quit your job, no? Which would mean that I wasn’t entirely wrong to say you care more about being Senator than you do about me.”

 _Wasn’t she supposed to be here to apologize?_ Jim thought. “You’re also running for Senate, Pam. And if you win, you’re going to spend a lot less time in Scranton. Something you wouldn’t do for me.”

“Jim, what is this where you don’t try to defend yourself? Do you think it somehow makes you look better that _neither_ of us had the strength to stand up for our marriage?”

“It’s not about making me look better, Pam. This isn’t a competition. It’s about making you understand why I did what I did because YOU DID THE EXACT SAME THING!”

“I’m _not_ the one who abandoned our family, Jim. I’m _not_ the one who gave up on everything we had built for a new job. I probably should have fought hard for our marriage, but it was hard when you were so dedicated to making sure there was nothing left fighting for.” There she was with that flawed line of reasoning. Jim tried to interrupt her, but she only increased her own volume. “You might not remember it, Jim, but once upon a time we got married. And once upon a time you made vows to me, and unless I’m remembering wrong, I don’t think any of those vows had an ‘unless I get a cool new job in Philly’ exception.”

That really ticked Jim off, although he wasn’t sure why. “Oh, I remember our wedding you little—“ and he stopped himself before he finished but she caught it anyway.

“I’m a little bitch, huh? Is that right? Well, you’re a useless, spineless, weak little bastard, son of a bitch, shell of a man who probably never even loved me at all and—“

“PAM!” Jim screamed. She had been yelling so loud he had to hurt his voicebox just to make her hear him. “Pam, you don’t know how much I loved you. You couldn’t imagine it if you tried. I remember when I first saw you, you looked—well, like you do now—and I thought you were the most beautiful woman I had ever seen. And then you said you would date me and I thought I was the luckiest man in the world, until you married me and I was really the luckiest man in the world.” Jim’s voice had calmed substantially. He took a couple of steps closer to Pam. “When we were married, waking up next to you was like the greatest surprise I could ever imagine. Whether we were separated by inches or thousands of miles, I thought about you constantly. I love you so much. I know you loved me, too.”

That had calmed her down. Him, too. He could feel the anger draining away. He looked into Pam’s eyes and saw a very familiar expression from their days of marriage.

Then it seemed like they might actually do it. _Oh God, this was a terrible idea. There was no way this could actually happen. This was guaranteed to end poorly. Stupid—_

He kissed her. She kissed him. Neither could tell who started it, but they kissed each other long and hard and didn’t let go for a long time.


	8. Chapter 8

_What are you doing? Idiot. This is a terrible idea. Stupid thing you’re doing. Jesus Christ, Pam. How could this possibly end well?_ Pam was yelling at herself as she kissed Jim. Bright red alarms going off in her head. At least part of her head. A part of her, though she didn’t want to admit it, kind of enjoyed the activity. He had said those things to her, those beautiful sounding things, and she didn’t know who started the kiss, probably both of them, but here they were.

Pam didn’t know who pulled away first. She saw Jim grinning when they did. One of those goofy grins like he used to do back in the good old days. She felt herself smiling, too. “Hey,” Jim said.

Pam missed this so badly it hurt. “Hey,” she wanted to say, or something else silly, and then she wanted to go back and kiss him again. She couldn’t do that, though. She knew too well how this ended.

Jim and she had never had a “slip-up” or a “relapse” or whatever they called a mistaken moment of passion in the year after a divorce. There wasn’t enough emotion there. Not that Pam didn’t feel emotions about it; she cried every night for months after he left. But when she saw him, she never expressed any of that.

And now, here they were. But Pam knew this couldn’t go any further. As much pain as she went through the last time things ended with Jim, she couldn’t risk doing it again.

So, she said that. “We can’t do this, Jim,” she said quietly, barely whispering.

He looked crushed. Surely, he had figured that out already. “Why not?” he asked.

“Jim, you know why not.”

Jim just looked sad. Pam took a few steps back from him. “What’s the harm?” he asked, but it sounded weak, like he already knew the answer but had to ask anyway.

“Jim,” Pam started, not sure what to say. “I’ll tell you, there’s one thing you’ve said tonight that you were dead wrong about, and it’s that I don’t know how much you loved me. Of course I know. I felt exactly the same way. Spending my life with you was the greatest gift in the world, and then it was just taken from me. I’m not letting that happen again.”

“Pam, I was hurt, too. Badly. I would think about driving to Scranton and begging for forgiveness on a nightly basis. But, I know you don’t see it this way, but we both made our decisions.”

Pam was crying now. She hadn’t cried during the entire lead up to the kiss, but she was crying now. Her vision was blurry from tears. She considered sitting down somewhere, but thought that might send the wrong message. “I’m not having this argument again, Jim. It’s ten years too late, anyway. There’s no changing the past.”

“So, where are we now, Pam?” It sounded desperate and unconfident. Perhaps because he knew the answer to this question, too.

“We’re nowhere, Jim. Coparents. Rivals for the Senate. I can’t go anywhere else with you.” Pam wiped her eyes of tears and waited for Jim to respond.

“And there’s no way we could make anything work.” It was a statement, now, not even asking a question.

Pam was surprised by Jim’s forwardness. “We had everything going for us, Jim. We loved each other so much. We worked together at the same desk. They made a documentary about what a good couple we were. If we couldn’t succeed then....” Pam didn’t want to finish her thought. Really, she didn’t want to go down this route at all. But Jim didn’t say anything immediately, and Pam felt compelled to add, “I shouldn’t have kissed you. That was a mistake.”

Jim was crying now, too, although not nearly as hard as Pam. “Was it all a mistake?”

“No. No, it wasn’t a mistake, it was some of the best years of my life. But I can’t do this. I’m sorry, I just can’t. And I should leave now.” Pam walked towards the door as she spoke, not wanting to give Jim time for a rebuttal. “I came here to apologize, and I guess I did that. And I’m sorry for kissing you, but I can’t do this, Jim, this can’t happen, I’m sorry.” Pam walked out the door, then, and down to her car where she would cry against the steering wheel until she could finally pull herself together enough to drive home.

  
Jim didn’t talk to Pam at all for a couple of weeks after they kissed. He arranged picking up and dropping off the kids mostly through her mom. Which felt really pathetic and embarrassing. They had failed so badly that they couldn’t even text each other about how to pick up their children.

A couple of times, Jim ended up having to text Dwight. It made him sad, the first time, that Philadelphia had mostly ended their relationship. Then he laughed bitterly and thought that as far as relationships he was sad Philadelphia ended, Dwight would not be at the top of the list.

However, Jim couldn’t totally avoid Pam forever, though, considering the scheduling of their third and final debate. He still tried as much as possible, looking only out into the audience, never addressing his opponent or even using her name. Pam was doing the same, he realized, at least in terms of not using his name. A couple of times, he tried to glance in her direction out of the corner of his eye and saw her facing directly into the audience. Truthfully, Jim was scared of what would happen if he looked into her eyes. Even if it made him feel like a coward, he wasn’t going to do it.

The debate covered all sorts of issues, but it wasn’t until near the end when foreign policy. “Ms. Beesly,” the moderator asked, “you have never held back criticizing harshly our foreign allies, calling them leeches, cowards, and con men. How would you justify this language as a representative of the United States, and by extension, the free world?”

“How I would justify it is simple: the things I say are true. America’s weak leaders have facilitated the shipment of hundreds of billions of dollars to foreign countries that do not need or deserve this money. Despite supposedly being our allies, these countries have done nothing good for America as it’s factories crumble and its wages stagnate, meaning they act more like leeches than like allies.”

The moderator motioned for Jim to respond. “A rhetoric that opposes our alliances is a dangerous one because our alliances are what makes America stronger. As the rest of the world gets stronger, America gets stronger, too. If we want to solve global issues like climate change, we need to rise above this nationalist rhetoric and take our place as leaders of the free world.”

“That’s not accurate,” Pam responded. “The rest of the world has, off of American taxpayer dollars, spent the past half a century getting stronger, and yet the same has not happened in America. And, I’m not sure if this is confusing, but I’m not running for Senator of this so-called ‘free world.’ I’m running for Senator from the United States of America. So I do not care about this ‘ _free world_ ,’ and if I put _American_ interests anywhere less than first, I would be failing as an _American_ Senator.”

“It’s true that not everything has improved over the past fifty years. But that have nothing to do with our allies. The fact that our alliances make America stronger shouldn’t even be up for debate, but these foreign policy issues just show what a radical, authoritarian turn the GOP has taken in recent years, and voters have got to reject this rhetoric seeped in racist isolationism.”

“I resent that,” Pam said, while still not turning to face Jim. “Dick Cheney killed half a million Iraqis, including thousands of women and children, for the sake of his personal wealth. But _how dare I_ be such a—what was it?—racist authoritarian for wanting to—get this, everybody— _not do that_?”

“I don’t support the Iraq War,” Jim was quick to respond. “It was a horrible, tragic mistake. But this isolationism is deeply rooted in racist ideology, and every patriotic American has got to _appreciate_ our strong alliances.”

“The idea,” Pam replied, “increasingly popular among the radical left that anything they don’t like is racist is deeply rooted in Marxist ideology. Meanwhile, the idea that working class Americans watching their proud factories torn down and being forced to live paycheck to paycheck should _appreciate_ having their tax dollars shipped off to foreign countries is deeply rooted in plain-old idiocy.”

Then the moderator announced that they were switching to a new topic, which Jim didn’t mind so much. He didn’t want to let Pam have the last word, but he was running out of things to say before he had to repeat himself. When it was announced that they would be asked questions of a “more personal nature,” though, Jim took issue with that.


	9. Chapter 9

Pam thought the debate was going pretty well. All things considered, that is. She had decided soon enough that she wasn’t going to look at or acknowledge Jim. It was a questionable strategy as far as politics were concerned. But she didn’t want to risk breaking down crying on stage. She hadn’t talked to Jim since leaving his apartment.

It was embarrassing, really. She had spent nine years thinking she and Jim had hit rock bottom, and now they were using “Uncle Dwight” as an intermediator to exchange their children. He would pull up with Angela in the passenger seat and their kids in the back and Pam was happy for them but _it wasn’t fair_. It made her want to scream, and sometimes after they had driven away and no one could hear Pam _would_ scream.

How could she have guessed that of the two deskmates, _Dwight_ would mature into the dedicated family man? Except Pam didn’t want to marry Dwight, and she didn’t regret the time she spent with Jim, and she was probably being too hard on him.

Pam thought she did alright during the foreign policy section. It was the next line from the moderator that caused her alarm though. “Now, I’m going to ask both of you some questions of a more personal nature.”

Pam wasn’t even thinking as she responded, it was just instinctive: “No.”

The moderator seemed surprised by this. “I’m sorry?” she asked.

Pam took a deep breath in, trying to give herself more confidence. She wasn’t backing down now. “You heard me. I’m not answering your personal questions.”

Pam considered looking over at Jim, tempted to see his reaction, but was already taking a chance to challenge the moderator and didn’t want to test her luck. She was just _so tired_ of these personal questions, and she remembered how it ended last time, and the two hours were almost over anyway.

“You don’t even know what the question is,” the moderator said.

Pam shook her head. “Don’t I? Maybe you’re gonna surprise me and bring out some allegations that my opponent is involved in a huge underground money laundering scheme. But I suspect your going to ask horrible questions about our marriage, specifically its end, that no politician other than the two of us would be required to answer. And I’m not doing that.”

“That’s right on point,” Pam heard Jim say. “I’m not doing it either.”

The moderator took a moment before continuing. “So you two don’t like talking about your relationship?”

“No,” Pam said, “unlike most people who _really enjoy_ explaining how their marriage failed to a large unsympathetic crowd.” Pam heard a noise that she thought might have been Jim chuckling.

“So, have you guys always avoided these personal issues?”

This time Jim stepped in: “No, I’m not letting you trick us into talking about this issue. It’s not happening.”

“I’m just saying,” the moderator said, “talking about the issues that really matter to us is an important thing to do even when it’s difficult.”

“Luckily,” Jim continued, “my opponent and I have spent the past two hours doing just that. But this issue, unlike the ones before, does not actually matter to working class Pennsylvanians.”

“Oh, this isn’t and issue of time,” the moderator asserted. “If you and your ex-wife had just gone along with the questions, we probably would be done by now.” And they she _smirked_. She was being such a bitch, and Pam wanted to tell her that right to her face. She probably could have gotten away with it—if she’d wrapped it up with some comments about how horrible the media is, her based would’ve eaten it up—but Pam held her tongue. “If you weren’t talking honestly about the things you cared about, it’s easy to see why your marriage failed.”

Pam was so close to full on screaming. She couldn’t believe it. She gripped the podium hard. “Thanks for your input,” she said coldly. The worst part was that she was right. Because of course she was. Because Pam could still remember clear as day when Jim would come home from increasingly long trips to Philly and there would be so many things she wanted to say to him but instead she sat paralyzed by fear, saying nothing. She remembered knowing they were drifting further and further apart but feeling silenced, not able to even acknowledge it. She felt like she did when Jim was dating Karen. And then they woke up and it was too late to save their marriage and there was only one thing left to do. But Pam wasn’t about to announce all that to the crowded auditorium.

The moderator waited, presumably hoping one of them would say something more. Eventually, she had to give up. “We can move on now, but I do think it’s important for anyone to communicate openly and honestly about the things they most care about.” Pam saw, out of the corner of her eye, Jim looking at her, and for the first time that night, she turned her head to meet his eyes. He smiled sympathetically, and Pam had to remind herself that he probably did know most of what she was going through.

“Now, to close out the last debate, why don’t you both explain, as generally as possible, your views for society?”

Pam went first. “It’s simple,” she said. “Society used to be way better off than it is know. Anyone with two eyes and a brain could tell you that. Right now, we have people telling us that they want to fix society through progress. Except that progress has only led us further down this dark road. Maybe they’re right; maybe if we just keep progressing we’ll progress hard enough that we’ll come out the other side. But we don’t need to take that chance. We know what works. Restore the middle class, end globalist trade, immigration, and foreign aid policies, and go back to teaching our children values they can be proud of. Because I don’t like the place we’re headed, and I miss the place we used to be. I miss it, I really do.”

Jim hadn’t fully looked away from Pam when he gave his response. “I miss the past, too. Not all of it, it wasn’t nearly as sunshine and roses as that description, and we’ve accomplished a lot of good things. But I, too, miss better times. But we can’t go back in time. It’s just not possible. So we can only go forward. I look forward to that future, and I hope to make it as great as possible. Pam, I hope you’ll come join me.”

Pam wondered if anyone else would realize they weren’t just talking about society.

Jim found Pam backstage right after the debate ended. “Hey,” he said. He smiled but was clearly nervous. “We should probably have that open and honest conversation. You know, at some point.”

Pam didn’t answer at first. She didn’t want to do it. She remembered the last time she’d seen him, she was as open as she’d been, and she wound up sitting in her car for hours in the empty parking garage under Jim’s apartment and crying against the steering wheel and clearing her eyes to see the clock read 2:30 and driving home at night along the empty roads and thinking that she hated driving at night and she could get in a car crash and die and the state party would pick some horrible neocon to replace her on the ticket.

“Yes,” Pam said. “Let’s do it tonight.”

Jim didn’t know what to say as he and Pam sat down in the living room of his apartment. He had suggested this whole thing. Well, technically the debate moderator had suggested it—what was that about?—but Jim still felt like it was his responsibility to get the ball rolling.

“So,” he said, “honest and open,” but didn’t add anything after that.

“Honestly,” Pam said, “I feel like we’ve been relatively honest recently. Perhaps honest and calm is what we need.”

Jim nodded. That sounded right. He frowned as he remember screaming at Pam in this apartment not too long ago. And then he had kissed her, but than was a whole other story. “I think it’s not fair for you to place all of the blame for our divorce on me. My decisions were the catalysts, yes, but you valued your lifestyle, location, and career over marriage in much the same way I did.”

Pam nodded. “Isn’t that what someone like you would call a bothsidesism?”

Jim laughed for a moment but became irritated that Pam wasn’t taking things seriously. “Bothsidesism in an idea invented by the Democratic establishment to dodge questions of their own corruption and failure of the working class. We need to call out weakness no matter where it comes from. But be serious.”

“Sorry,” Pam said, and looked away. Jim felt some sympathy for her; using jokes to deal with tension wasn’t something he was unfamiliar with. “I know logically you might be right.”

“Thank you for acknowledging that,” Jim said when Pam took a long pause.

“But it still feels like an unfair comparison,” she continued. “Perhaps because it was your decisions that got us into this situation. I mean, if you had known that taking that job would lead to divorce, would you have done it?”

It was a question Jim had asked himself many times. “No, of course not.”

“Exactly,” Pam said, not raising her voice. Her tone was unnaturally calm, but it was better than yelling. “I did make decisions that led to our divorce, but it was all late in the process. By the time I even knew what was going on the papers were as good as signed.”

“This was one of the few things I actually shared with you at the time, but I think one of my main concerns was spending the rest of our marriage in a state of regret, always wondering what could have happened.”

Pam nodded. “I understand. I spent many years in a relationship I had settled for. Always wondering if I could do better, thinking that it wasn’t what I really wanted.”

It took Jim a moment to realize she was talking about Roy. “So where does that leave us then? Was this just back luck? Once I got that job offer from Colin, were we through? Because I don’t know what that says about our marriage.”

Pam sighed, and Jim could see her mind working. “No,” she said, “it was more than bad luck. It was cowardice. From both of us. If we could have just stopped to talk about what was going on we might have been okay.”

“Yeah,” Jim agreed. He knew she was right. “I remember the days near the end when I would sit on the couch with you and everything would feel so totally wrong and yet I couldn’t bring myself to say anything about it. I was terrified. And that fear prevented me from doing something.”

“I think the documentary made it more difficult. We were supposed to have this perfect, dream marriage with no real hiccups. And we played that role very well for a long time. But when things got shaken up, we had nothing. No guardrails, no safety net. We just fell all the way down.”

She had a point, there. “I wonder if it would be easier, now,” Jim said. “We’re political rivals, and we’re supposed to hate each other, so it’s the exact opposite situation.”

Pam nodded, seeming slightly amused by that. “I guess that brings us to our next topic,” she said. “You kissed me. I kissed you.”

“We kissed each other,” Jim offered.

“Right,” Pam agreed. “Why’d you do it?”

Jim sighed. “I guess...” he trailed off. “I guess you just looked so beautiful. And I was thinking about what I was saying and how much I loved you. It was all true, by the way.” There was another pause. “Why’d you do it?”

Pam nodded as if she had expected that. “The same reasons, I guess,” she said.

“Because I looked so beautiful,” Jim joked, and Pam laughed pretty hard at that.

“Because you looked like you did back when you would tell me how much you loved me every single day. And I would tell you how much I love you and I loved you so much.” Pam paused before continuing. “I miss you, Jim. I’ve missed you for so long. I’ve seen so many things over the past ten years and thought _Ooh, I have to tell Jim about that_ only to realize I couldn’t. And there were so many nights when I was lying alone in bed and I wished so badly that you would come and lie down next to me just so I wouldn’t be alone. I’ve spent so many nights alone over the past ten years. But of course you know the feeling.”

Jim smiled. “I miss you, too, Pam. I’ve thought about you so much over the past decade you wouldn’t believe it. As crazy as it’s been, the fact the the Senate election has given me a chance to interact with you is something I’ve enjoyed. Even just seeing your face.”

“You don’t mind the politics?” Pam asked. “With me being... you know....”

“Totally insane?” Jim offered, and Pam nodded, smiling. “No. If nothing else, I know you mean well. And I think you know I mean well, too.” Pam nodded in agreement and there was a pause in the conversation. “So,” Jim asked, “where do we go from here?”

“I’m not getting back together with you,” Pam said. Jim had to hide his disappointment despite knowing the wisdom of her decision. “But, I’ve enjoyed seeing you over the past few months, even when we’ve just been yelling at each other over politics. And I’ve missed you like crazy. So perhaps we should try to be friends.”

Jim smiled. “I liked that idea, friend,” he said. He stuck out his hand and Pam shook it.

“Well,” she said, “I should probably start heading home. But I’m glad I came up here. And we should do something together soon. Friend.”

“Sounds like a plan, friend,” Jim said, chuckling. Pam walked towards the door, but came back to wrap her arms around Jim, hugging her now friend for the first time in a long, long time.


	10. Chapter 10

Pam was the one who texted first, a few days after the debate. They had both been busy, Jim knew, but it was nice to hear from her. “I’m going to be in Philly on Sat. If you’re around, we should do something.”

Jim tried to calm himself down after he read that. He was waiting offstage before a campaign stop in Lancaster. _We’re friends_ , he reminded himself, _and friends do things together_. He took a deep breath. “I’m in Bethlehem that morning and afternoon, but I’ll be back in Philly by that evening,” he texted.

“Sounds good!” Pam messaged, followed by, “Say hi to baby Jesus for me.”

Jim tried to find the eye roll emoji to send back to Pam, but he quickly realized he had no idea how his emoji keyboard worked. Happy as he was to hear from Pam, it was a sobering reminder that they were no longer 30. “What do you wanna do?” he sent.

“Idk,” Pam replied. “What do people our age do?”

Jim took a moment to think about that. What did he want to do with her? He hadn’t been to a movie theater in what felt like ages, and he wasn’t inclined to change that. Were they supposed to go skating or something silly like that? Remember the good old days. But Jim didn’t want everything to always be about the good old days between them. “I’m out of ideas,” he confessed.

“Same,” Pam responded, “so I guess we should just go out to dinner.”

 _It’s more than we’ve done in the past decade_ , Jim thought. His campaign manager came down and told him that things were ready, so he turned back to close out his conversation with Pam. “Sounds like a plan! I’ll see you outside my building at 8.”

Saturday suddenly seemed way closer than Jim realized. He looked through his phone for restaurants near his building, trying to figure out where to go. He looked through carefully, reading about places he had never even known existed. In the end, he settled on a steakhouse he had been to a couple of times with reasonable prices and a decent atmosphere.

Bethlehem was tiring, and part of Jim wanted to go home and go to bed, but another part was excited to see Pam. He opened his closer and spent way too much time thinking about what to wear, especially considering how similar what he chose was to what he had been wearing. He took a shower, and was waiting in front of his apartment by 7:45, although he left a moment after that to get himself a winter coat. It wasn’t that cold, actually warm for a late October night, but he figured there was no harm.

When Jim got back down, Pam was already waiting for him. “Hey,” he said, “you look....” It wasn’t creepy sounding, but Jim didn’t know how to finish the sentence. She didn’t look too much different than how she often did.

Jim let himself trail off for too long, and Pam laughed awkwardly before asking, “So, we’re walking to this place?”

“Yeah,” Jim said, and led the way. Dinner went well, and Jim was pretty sure Pam was enjoying herself. He was. Jim offered for her to come up to his apartment, and she agreed.

On the way back home, Pam pointed out a shop that Jim hadn’t noticed: “I should get an ice cream cone,” she said.

Jim looked at her, amused. “It’s like 45 degrees out,” he reminded her. She shrugged and walked into the store while smiling, ordering a small vanilla cone. “You don’t even have a coat on, and I’m not letting you borrow mine if you get cold.”

Pam agreed to that, but sure enough, as she finished off the cone, she wound up shivering in the cold. Jim shook his head at that, but gave her his coat anyway. She thanked him for that.

When they got back to Jim’s apartment, Pam went straight to sit down on his couch. “You aren’t going to take off my coat?” he asked.

“It’s pretty cold in here,” Pam said. She was right. Jim had been having problems with his heater, so he excused himself to go fix it. When he got back, he pulled his coat off of Pam, and when she frowned at the loss of warmth, he sat down next to her and wrapped one arm around her to hold her against him.

“I didn’t know you knew how heaters worked,” Pam said.

“Oh, you don’t have to know how something works to fix it. You just bang it around a whole lot and figure it’ll come out alright.”

Pam smiled. “Well, then you must already be preparing for if you win this election.”

Jim laughed at that. “Yup, that’s how you do it.” After a moment, he asked, “So, what’s Mitch McConnell like over the phone?”

Pam groaned. “Exactly like you would expect. Horrible.” Then she said, “I like to take great measures to further my own power but never use it to push America First policies,” in her best Mitch McConnell impression.

Jim laughed at her for that. “Oh my God, that was terrible,” he said, while Pam made an expression of mock offense. “Never do that again.”

“I’d like to hear you do better!” She challenged.

“Well, I could do a better Chuck Schumer impression.”

“Hmm,” Pam said, “that doesn’t seem quite fair.”

“Well, hey,” Jim said, “just so you know. I am not, in fact, involved in any huge underground money laundering schemes,” and that made Pam chuckle, but she didn’t say anything, so after a moment, the silence turned a bit awkward.

“So, have you dated anyone else since we got divorced?” Jim asked. More awkward. Pam took her time responding.

“No,” she said. She turned her head to face Jim, startling him with how close their faces were to each other. “I don’t know if I ever will. I love you _so_ much, Jim. And yet we couldn’t make it work. How could I possible expect to make it work with anyone else? If it didn’t work with you, it’s not going to work with anyone.”

Jim nodded. “Yeah, I know how it goes. I found the woman I love. But if we couldn’t make it work out, what’s the point of trying with anyone else? Spend the whole time knowing that I could be doing better.”

Their faces were close now, just inches apart, and they stared at each other. In the process Jim noticed that Pam had some ice cream on her face, so he leaned in to wipe it off with his shirt. Then, their faces were almost touching, and they both knew it was coming when she kissed him and he kissed her. Except this time, when they pulled away from each other, they weren’t ready to stop. They kissed each other again, just as hard as the first time, until one of them had the idea to move into Jim’s bedroom, and then Jim and Pam reached a place they hadn’t gone in almost ten years.

Pam couldn’t say she wasn’t surprised to wake up naked, in Jim’s arms. She was very surprised. She didn’t recognize what was happening at first, seeing only his hairy hands, but she pieced everything back together enough. It made her smile to remember the events of the previous night, and even though she didn’t know where they were going from here, she didn’t hesitate to push her body against Jim’s and let herself absorb his warmth.

She lied there for a long stretch of time without moving, being totally comfortable, until Jim woke up. “Good morning,” he said while yawning, and Pam rolled around to look at him. She was pleased to see the same goofy grin he used to wear the mornings after they had spent the night together. It probably mirrored her own face. Underneath, though, Pam worried about what the future held for them. “We probably need another one of those open and honest conversations,” she said.

It took the pair a little while to get up and get settled. Pam put on one of Jim’s bathrobes. Jim offered to make eggs, but Pam just grabbed a banana and put an English muffin into Jim’s toaster oven. She poured herself a cup of coffee and sat down in Jim’s living room, this time in a chair of her own.

“So,” Pam said, and she tried to be serious, but Jim’s messy hair reminded her of all the things she had done to him the night before, so she ended up giggling and didn’t get to finish her sentence.

“So,” Jim said, and for a second it sounded like he might have been serious, but he followed up with, “How was I?”

“You were very good,” Pam said, smiling at him. “ _Very_ good.”

“Glad to see I haven’t lost it.”

Pam decided then that it was time to be really serious. “The logical part of my brain is screaming that this is all a terrible idea,” she said, cutting down the tone of her voice.

“Hmm,” Jim said. “And is it?”

Pam thought for a moment. _Of course it is, right?_ “Well, we’re running against each other for Senate. We live in different cities. And the last time we tried this, it failed miserably. And I’m not sure I can go through that again.”

“I wouldn’t worry about the Senate, Pam,” Jim replied. “The scandal would hurt both of us equally, if, that is, we couldn’t keep it hidden for the next nine days. Unless you’re worried that the Green Party candidate is going to come take this one.”

Pam laughed at that, but she still wasn’t sure what Jim was doing. “Are you arguing that we should do it?” she asked.

Jim shrugged. “I’m just stating facts,” he said before continuing. “As for our cities, I was going to suggest even before last night that whoever wins moves down by the loser. They won’t have the job to worry about anymore, and it’d be better for the kids. Plus, if you have to move to Philly, you’d be moving closer to Washington.”

Pam nodded. “That’s an intriguing idea,” she said.

“I don’t know about all the other stuff. Do you think we’ve changed since we got divorced?”

Pam couldn’t tell if it was a rhetorical question. “I mean, we’re both running for Senate. I don’t know if either of us would have done that ten years ago.” Pam was more concerned with the question of if what they were discussing was actually a real possibility.

Jim nodded. “That sounds right. Perhaps we’ve grown enough that we wouldn’t be too scared to talk about our problems. But of course, we didn’t expect to fail last time.”

“But Jim,” Pam asked, “What if it all falls out from under us again and we’re back to rock bottom? I don’t know if I can do that again.”

“Pam, I don’t know how much more of not-rock-bottom I can take. Passing off our children in the Allentown McDonalds, reassuring ourselves that _at least_ we don’t need Dwight to mediate and _at least_ we don’t break down crying every night. I don’t know how much more of that I can take. I _miss_ you, Pam. I miss hanging out with you, and laughing with you, and doing what we did last night.”

Pam was smiling now. Smiling because she thought this actually might happen. Still, she had doubts. “Jim, we were never supposed to fail. And when we did fail, it totally destroyed me. I don’t know if I could go through that again.”

“Well, Pam, you’re right that our divorce came as a huge surprise. But if our relationship fell apart again, there’s no way it would be so surprising. And you don’t know if you could go through the end again, but wouldn’t you if you knew you could get everything before. Wouldn’t you do it in an instant?”

Pam nodded. She couldn’t believe they were actually planning on doing this. “So, how do we go about this?”

“Well, do you want to go to dinner with me on Tuesday?” Jim asked. “This time as a date.”

Pam didn’t hesitate to say yes. Didn’t hesitate even when she saw she was spending that day around Pottsville, which wasn’t far from Philly but wasn’t _close_. How could she hesitate when they were actually going to get back together?

Jim called Pam on Monday night, and she worried he brought bad news. “Pam, tomorrow night I need to bake a cake,” which Pam feared was some strange excuse for him to back out, even as he explained the strange path of events that brought him to that point. “So I won’t be able to go out,” he explained, “but I was wondering if you’d want to come over and order some pizza maybe.”

“Of course!” Pam said, relieved that at least he wasn’t backing out. “You _really_ have to bake a cake?”

“I do, I swear. It’s strange, I know.”

“Do I get to help?” Pam asked.

Jim laughed at that. “Well, I don’t know. Is this a sabotage operation?”

Pam ended up doing just as much of the work as Jim, but she didn’t mind. She flirted with Jim the whole time, culminating in licking some of the badder off his finger. He ordered the two of them a pizza, and they sat on the couch together to eat it. Then they went into Jim’s bedroom for the part of the night Pam had _really_ been looking forward to.

When the big event was over and Pam was laying with Jim, slowly drifting to sleep, she had a thought. “The establishment will really lose their heads if/when they find out about this. Wish they had totally rigged the primary against us.”

“You mean because the boring suburbanite neolibs don’t usually end up in bed together?” Jim asked.

“Exactly,” Pam said. She felt Jim’s breath on the back of her neck as she fit tightly against the front of his body. “I’m glad we’re not boring suburbanite neolibs.”


	11. Chapter 11

“Why on Earth did I agree to this?” Jim asked as he heard the alarm go off at 6:00 on Election Day, his words slurred by sleepiness so that he could barely understand himself.

Pam didn’t seem to have an answer, but kissed Jim lightly on the lips before climbing out of bed. “Well, you can sleep for another couple hours if you want to,” she said.

“No, I should get up,” Jim mumbled, but stayed in bed for another few minutes. When he finally got out of bed and walked into the kitchen, he found Pam sitting on one of his barstools wearing nothing but one of his t-shirts. “You want me to make eggs?” he asked.

“Sure,” Pam said as she got up to pour herself a cup of coffee. Jim took a moment to look over her bare legs before going to the fridge.

“So why again are we awake at this hour?” Jim asked.

“I have to be in York at 9,” Pam explained. “And you were generous enough to offer me a place to stay.”

“And there were no hotels available anywhere near there. I mean, even Scranton has has to be almost as close to York as Philly.”

“Well, you know, there are other _benefits_ to sleeping here,” Pam explained.

Jim liked the sound of that. “Beesly!” he exclaimed, and he loved to watch her giggle at that. He ran a hand through his hair while he made the eggs. “So where are you barnstorming today?”

“After York, it’s Harrisburg,” Pam explained, “then after that Sunbury, Hazelton, up to Montrose, before the last stop in Scranton. What about you?”

“Oh, I have one thing scheduled in Norristown, but other than that I’m just up and down Philly,” he explained as he put the eggs on a plate and set them in front of Pam. “I mean, at this point, it’s all gonna come down to turnout. Which you should know.”

After eating breakfast, Pam went back into Jim’s bedroom to prepare herself for the day. Jim sat on his bed while she did that, reminding himself not to go back to sleep. “It’s a nice place you’ve got here,” Pam called out from the bathroom.”

“Yeah,” Jim said. Then, remembering the deal they had made when they started dating, he added, “This might be one of the last times you see it.”

Pam poked her head out of the door and looked confused for a moment before understanding Jim’s joke. “Oh, no,” she said, matching his tone, “I think I’m about to see a lot more of this place.”

A few minutes later, Pam walked out of the bathroom well dressed, with her hair done, looking prepared for a long last day of campaigning. “How do I look?” she asked.

Jim looked at her. “Oh,” he said, “I think I like it better when it’s early in the morning and you’ve just woken up,” and that made Pam smile.

“You know,” Pam said as she walked out into the living room, a smile on her face, “I think I’ve enjoyed running for Senate with you.”

Jim looked back at her. Grinning and wiggling his eyebrows he said, “Running for Senate? Is that what the kids call it these days?”

Pam wouldn’t have admitted how much she was thinking about Jim. To be clear, she had a busy day. There were plenty of things to keep her occupied. But it happened on the drives between cities. She would look into the mirror to remind herself that she wasn’t 30 anymore and shouldn’t be acting like this. Then she would wonder when she was going to see Jim again.

They hadn’t told anybody yet. They would probably have to tell people soon. Their kids, first off. Then, sooner or later, the media would find out. That would be a fun time.

She was thinking about him while she waited in line to vote, remembering the times when she had gone to vote with Jim at that same Scranton precinct. She thought about him when she got her ballot and saw their names right next to each other. It was an amazing thing. She missed the feeling of thinking about him that much.

There were a few minutes between her final rally in Scranton and poll closings, so after she headed to her campaign headquarters, she figured she would call Jim. She watched the television anxiously, seeing results come in from the earliest states, while Jim took a moment to pick up.

“You calling to concede?” he asked as soon as he picked up the phone.

Pan laughed at that. It was a stupid joke, really. It was good to hear his voice. “No, I just had a spare moment, and,”— _why had she called?_ —“figured I might as well.”

“Yeah,” Jim said, “I was actually thinking the same thing.”

Neither one of them said anything for a moment. Pam tried to figure out what to say but didn’t want to sound cheesy. “Any final predictions for how it’s going to go down?” she asked.

“Well, at the end of the day, it is a Dem midterm, so you’ll probably come out on top.”

“True,” Pam agreed, “but people are pretty happy that the pandemic’s over. Plus, the polls seem to show you ekeing this one out.”

“Ahh,” Jim said, “well, we know those could never be wrong.”

“Well, either way, I’m really glad certain things turned out the way they did,” Pam said, and she appreciated how effortless it felt to tell the truth.

She looked up at the television and saw Fox News announce polls closing in Pennsylvania. This was it. Time to hang up now. But for a moment, she didn’t. For a moment, they stayed on the lone together, saying nothing, content in the silence.

“I love you, Pam,” Jim said after a moment.

“I love you, too, Jim.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow. So I actually finished it. This idea was originally a joke that somehow got turned into 20,000 words, of which not all are bad. You know, it’s been two weeks since I last updated, and that’s just because I didn’t want this to be over. I’ve had a lot of fun writing this, and I hope if you’ve gotten to this point, you’ve had fun reading it, but let me know what you thought. Thanks for reading!


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